Under the theme of “exchange between urban cities and rural regions” this is a cultural facility to discover and promote Echigo-Tsumari’s local assets. Visitors can experience the culture and lifestyle of this snow country through events, workshops, and local delicacies.
The Matsudai area of Tokamachi City is mostly mountainous and is known for its heavy snowfall in the winter. Through over 1000 years of human history, people in this region have been coexisting with nature. Cultivating on terraced rice field on the slope of mountains, changing the river flow to create more rice fields (known as “segaeda”), planting trees following mudslides which are often and plenty in this area: the way that these locals have coexisted with nature is called “satoyama”. Matsudai Nohbutai is a field museum for promoting this distinctive lifestyle in the snow country by allowing guests to explore the carefully selected artworks exhibited and offering local delicacies at the in-house restaurant Echigo-Matsudai Satoyama Shokudo.
The bulding itself, designed by Dutch architect MVRDV, is in itself a piece of art and its interior and exterior spaces host the artworks by numerous other artists.